So i am running on a late 2009, 1Tb, 2.8 GHz Core i7 iMac (11,1), and currently have Mac OS X dual-booting with Windows 8 from rEFIt quite nicely. I have been able to customize rEFIt and all of that and everything has worked seamlessly. However, I have been attempting to install Mint 14 KDE Nadia as well and triple boot. I can run the live CD very nicely (apple wireless mouse, airport extreme all worked from the start), so I went ahead and decided to install it fully. After obtaining all available system updates, I began the installation process. During the installation, I have created the following partitions/sizes in Mb:/boot = 700(swap) = 20000/home = 100000/usr = 20000/usr/local = 20000/opt = 20000/tmp = 10000/ = 30000I have told the installer to install the bootloader to both the root directory and the /boot directory on two separate attempts to installThe installation then goes through its deal and gets to where it tells me to restart, remove the Live DVD, etc.Mac OS X & Win8 still work from rEFIt as described previously, and linux is detected as my third option on rEFIt. However, when I select it the penguin comes up and then one of two things happen, seemingly arbitrarily:1.) Penguin remains on the screen forever (was still there in the morning after I had let it stay all night2.) The penguin disappears, and then I get a screen that says "Missing operating system..._" and computer is unresponsive, save the rear power button to shut down.

I have also selected the drive icon that told me there was some sore of mismatch on my MBR and asked to fix it. I said yes, but problem still persists.

Try booting your Linux live CD, download Boot Info Script, and run it. This should produce a file called RESULTS.txt. Post that file here, either between code tags or as a link. This will provide critical diganostic information, such as the contents of your GRUB configuration file and your /etc/fstab file.

=> Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda. => No known boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdc. => No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdd. => No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sde.

File system: ext4 Boot sector type: Grub2 (v1.99) Boot sector info: Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the boot sector of sda5 and looks at sector 659519488 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks in partition 72 for . Operating System: Boot files: /grub/grub.cfg

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------## DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE## It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom #### This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change# the 'exec tail' line above.### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------# /etc/fstab: static file system information.## Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).## <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass># / was on /dev/sda12 during installationUUID=4bcb2425-5501-4770-92cc-4a03309d803e / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1# /boot was on /dev/sda5 during installationUUID=419623ec-1a5b-4625-9cf6-2c68d588ee58 /boot ext4 defaults 0 2# /home was on /dev/sda7 during installationUUID=45eea0a2-53da-45e8-b7b5-2472498293ed /home ext4 defaults 0 2# /opt was on /dev/sda10 during installationUUID=2415e36f-120b-4a10-a18e-9a654341ae32 /opt ext4 defaults 0 2# /tmp was on /dev/sda11 during installationUUID=865ca50f-a994-4ba2-ac0d-0ae85693dbcc /tmp ext4 defaults 0 2# /usr was on /dev/sda8 during installationUUID=23991fd5-7a91-4901-be6d-3400585ca9f7 /usr ext4 defaults 0 2# /usr/local was on /dev/sda9 during installationUUID=9a93c1b0-282d-4952-955f-7909044ac57e /usr/local ext4 defaults 0 2# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installationUUID=6bd1842f-927b-4ef4-8373-4a5af5d81538 none swap sw 0 0--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't see anything obviously wrong with your configuration, but I may be missing something. Thus, my recommendation is to try another approach to booting Linux: Instead of booting via a BIOS-mode version of GRUB 2, which is what you're doing now, switch to an EFI-mode boot loader. The easiest one to try from your current situation is probably my rEFInd. You can do so without making any permanent changes to your disk:

Insert the boot medium and boot from it. In theory, rEFIt should detect rEFInd as a generic boot loader; or you should be able to launch it by pressing Option as you start the computer.

In rEFInd, you should see a Linux penguin icon that's labelled "vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic". Highlight it.

Press F2 or Insert twice. This should open a text-mode line editor in which boot options are listed.

Add "ro root=/dev/sda12" to the list of boot options.

Press Enter. This should start the boot process.

If Linux still fails to boot, it should at least produce a more verbose set of startup messages that might provide a clue about what's going wrong. Report back with that information.

If Linux boots successfully using this method, you can permanently install rEFInd so that it replaces rEFIt. (rEFInd is a further development of rEFIt, since rEFIt hasn't been updated in three years.) Do so from OS X by following the instructions on the rEFInd Web site. Be sure to install the ext4fs driver along with rEFInd itself, since rEFInd needs to be able to read the kernel from your ext4 filesystem. Feel free to test rEFInd's ability to boot Windows and OS X first. Note that you're likely to have some extra entries in rEFInd. If you find them distracting, you can modify the rEFInd configuration to unclutter the display, but the details will depend on exactly what you see. Post back with details if you need help with this.

If you have problems getting rEFInd to boot from a CD-R or USB flash drive, you can install it alongside rEFIt by putting it on the OS X system partition, as described in the manual installation instructions, but do not run "bless." That will enable you to launch rEFInd from rEFIt, and if it doesn't work out you can just delete the rEFInd files.

OK - will perform tonight after I am home from work around 11:30. Thanks for the help!

It is superficial, and therefore not necessary, but is rEFInd customizable in the same ways as rEFIt? With the custom banner, images, etc. I will be sharing my computer with 5 roommates who are much less versed in this than I will be, so the simplicity achievable with rEFIt will be a huge plus. Of course, a working Linux OS is most important so if not, I will still be going through with whatever I can get operational.

So I used the CD-R .iso image route to initiating rEFInd, and all went well. I was able to select the option and pressed F2, etc...However, in this line editor I tried two things, both of which gave me the same result:

1.) I replaced the line of text in this menu with the "ro root=/dev/sda12" and pressed ENTER. A bunch of text (hundreds of lines of numbers, letters, etc.) That appeared and disappeared faster than I could read them. Then, instead of seeing the "Missing operating system" message, I just got a black screen. I could hear that the computer was still making noise, and my external drives were still turned on, so something was going on, but it stays at that unresponsive screen forever.

2.) I left the existing text there, hit SPACE, and then typed in the above line, before hitting ENTER. Same result occurred here.

I'll keep tinkering and trying different things here, but I am pretty sure I am in need of more advice, if possible!

I am sorry for the multiple replies here, but I finally was able to get a readable snapshot of the output that comes up as described above, just prior to the seemingly unresponsiveness. Just as an FYI, since we are dealing with a black screen here - I am currently running 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM, and ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB graphics card. THere are two images, one where I used flash, and the other where I did not, although both are fairly readable.

I figured that this may have been my mistake, but in my attempt #2 above, I received the same outcome. Is there a special way to add your advised command, other than just putting a space and then adding it?

afroman7600 wrote:I figured that this may have been my mistake, but in my attempt #2 above, I received the same outcome. Is there a special way to add your advised command, other than just putting a space and then adding it?

I'm sorry; I must have missed that when reading your reply. Check for an existing initrd= entry in the options line that rEFInd generates. If there isn't one, try adding one, pointing to your initrd file. (It should read "initrd=initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic", if the Boot Info Script output you posted earlier is still accurate.) Also, it's possible that your device identifiers are changing -- for instance, if you've repartitioned since running Boot Info Script, your Mint root (/) filesystem might no longer be /dev/sda12, so you might need to adjust that value as necessary. Using a UUID can work around this problem, but that's awkward in the extreme when you need to type it manually.

Alternatively, you can boot using an emergency system and mount your regular system's /boot partition (/dev/sda5) somewhere convenient. (I'll suppose it will be at /boot.) You can then create a /boot/refind_linux.conf file like this:

With that file in place, it should no longer be necessary to edit the options at boot time. You can add more options if you want to tweak the behavior, but starting with something basic should get the system booting. I've used the UUID reported by Boot Info Script in this example to avoid complications if the device IDs are changing on you.